Chapter 56

"Smooth move, Ex-Lax," she says, climbing back into Ng's van. Her throat feels thick and swollen¹. Maybe it's from screaming, maybe it's the toxic² waste, maybe she's getting ready to gag. "Didn't you know about the snipers?" she says. If she can keep talking about the details of the job, maybe she can keep her mind off of what the Whirlwind Reaper³ did.

"I didn't know about the one on the water tower," Ng says. "But as soon as he fired a couple of rounds, we plotted the bullets' trajectories⁴ on millimeter-wave and back-traced them." He talks to his van and it pulls out of its hiding place, headed for I-405.

"Seems like kind of an obvious place to look for a sniper."

"He was in an unfortified position, exposed from all sides," Ng says. "He chose to work from a suicidal position. Which is not a typical behavior for drug dealers⁵. Typically, they are more pragmatic. Now, do you have any other criticisms of my performance?"

"Well, did it work?"

"Yes. The tube was inserted into a sealed chamber⁶ inside the helicopter before it discharged its contents. It was then flash-frozen in liquid helium before it could chemically self-destruct. We now have a sample of Snow Crash, something that no one else has been able to get. It is the kind of success on which reputations such as mine are constructed."

"How about the Rat Things?" "How about them?"

"Are they back in the van now? Back there?" Y.T. jerks her head aft.

Ng pauses for a moment Y.T. reminds herself that he is sitting in his office in Vietnam in 1955 watching all of this on TV.

"Three of them are back," Ng says. "Three are on their way back. And three of them I left behind to carry out additional pacification⁷ measures."

"You're leaving them behind?"

"They'll catch up," Ng says. "On a straightaway, they can run at seven hundred miles per hour."

"Is it true they have nuke stuff inside of them?"

"Radiothermal isotopes⁸."

"What happens if one gets busted⁹ open? Everyone gets all mutated?"

"If you ever find yourself in the presence of a destructive force powerful enough to decapsulate those isotopes," Ng says, "radiation sickness will be the least of your worries."

"Will they be able to find their way back to us?"

"Didn't you ever watch Lassie Come Home when you were a child?" he asks. "Or rather, more of a child than you are now?"

So. She was right. The Rat Things are made from dog parts.

"That's cruel," she says.

"This brand of sentimentalism is very predictable," Ng says.

"To take a dog out of his body -- keep him in a hutch all the time."

"When the Rat Thing, as you call it, is in his hutch, do you know what he's doing?"

"Licking his electric nuts?"

"Chasing Frisbees through the surf. Forever. Eating steaks that grow on trees. Lying beside the fire in a hunting lodge¹⁰. I haven't installed any testicle-licking simulations yet, but now that you have brought it up, I shall consider it."

"What about when he's out of the hutch, running around doing errands for you?"

"Can't you imagine how liberating¹¹ it is for a pit bull terrier to be capable of running seven hundred miles an hour?"

Y.T. doesn't answer. She is too busy trying to get her mind around this concept.

"Your mistake," Ng says, "is that you think that all mechanically assisted organisms -- like me -- are pathetic cripples. In fact, we are better than we were before."

"Where do you get the pit bulls from?"

"An incredible number of them are abandoned every day, in cities all over the place."

"You cut up pound puppies?"

"We save abandoned dogs from certain extinction¹² and send them to what amounts to dog heaven."

"My friend Roadkill and I had a pit bull. Fido. We found it in an alley¹³. Some asshole had shot it in the leg. We had a vet¹⁴ fix it up. We kept it in this empty apartment in Roadkill's building for a few months, played with it every day, brought it food. And then one day we came to play with Fido, and he was gone. Someone broke in and took him away. Probably sold him to a research lab."

"Probably," Ng says, "but that's no way to keep a dog."

"It's better than the way he was living before."

There's a break in the conversation as Ng occupies himself with talking to his van, maneuvering¹⁵ onto the Long Beach Freeway, headed back into town.

"Do they remember stuff?" Y.T. says.

"To the extent dogs can remember anything," Ng says. "We don't have any way of erasing¹⁶ memories."

"So maybe Fido is a Rat Thing somewhere, right now."

"I would hope so, for his sake," Ng says.

1 swollen   

adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀

参考例句：

• Her legs had got swollen from standing up all day.因为整天站着，她的双腿已经肿了。
• A mosquito had bitten her and her arm had swollen up.蚊子叮了她，她的手臂肿起来了。

2 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

3 reaper   

n.收割者，收割机

参考例句：

• The painting is organized about a young reaper enjoying his noonday rest.这幅画的画面设计成一个年轻的割禾人在午间休息。
• A rabbit got caught in the blades of the reaper.一只兔子被卷到收割机的刀刃中去了。

4 trajectories   

n.弹道( trajectory的名词复数 )；轨道；轨线；常角轨道

参考例句：

• To answer this question, we need to plot trajectories of principal stresses. 为了回答这个问题，我们尚须画出主应力迹线图。 来自辞典例句
• In the space program the theory is used to determine spaceship trajectories. 在空间计划中，这个理论用于确定飞船的轨道。 来自辞典例句

5 dealers   

n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者

参考例句：

• There was fast bidding between private collectors and dealers. 私人收藏家和交易商急速竞相喊价。
• The police were corrupt and were operating in collusion with the drug dealers. 警察腐败，与那伙毒品贩子内外勾结。

6 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

7 pacification   

n. 讲和，绥靖，平定

参考例句：

• Real pacification is hard to get in the Vietnamese countryside. 在越南的乡下真正的安宁是很难实现的。
• Real pacification is hard to get in the Vietnamese countryside(McGeorge Bundy) 在越南的乡下真正的安宁是很难实现的（麦乔治·邦迪）

8 isotopes   

n.同位素；同位素( isotope的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• the many isotopes of carbon 碳的诸多同位素
• Tritium is one of the mildest radioactive isotopes. 氚是最和缓的放射性同位素之一。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 busted   

adj. 破产了的，失败了的，被降级的，被逮捕的，被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You are so busted! 你被当场逮住了！
• It was money troubles that busted up their marriage. 是金钱纠纷使他们的婚姻破裂了。

10 lodge   

v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆

参考例句：

• Is there anywhere that I can lodge in the village tonight?村里有我今晚过夜的地方吗？
• I shall lodge at the inn for two nights.我要在这家小店住两个晚上。

11 liberating   

解放，释放( liberate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Revolution means liberating the productive forces. 革命就是为了解放生产力。
• They had already taken on their shoulders the burden of reforming society and liberating mankind. 甚至在这些集会聚谈中，他们就已经夸大地把改革社会、解放人群的责任放在自己的肩头了。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

12 extinction   

n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种

参考例句：

• The plant is now in danger of extinction.这种植物现在有绝种的危险。
• The island's way of life is doomed to extinction.这个岛上的生活方式注定要消失。

13 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。

14 vet   

n.兽医，退役军人；vt.检查

参考例句：

• I took my dog to the vet.我把狗带到兽医诊所看病。
• Someone should vet this report before it goes out.这篇报道发表之前应该有人对它进行详查。

15 maneuvering   

v.移动，用策略( maneuver的现在分词 )；操纵

参考例句：

• This Manstein did, with some brilliant maneuvering under the worse winter conditions. 曼施坦因在最恶劣的严冬条件下，出色地施展了灵活机动的战术，终于完成了任务。 来自辞典例句
• In short, large goals required farsighted policies, not tactical maneuvering. 一句话，大的目标需要有高瞻远瞩的政策，玩弄策略是不行的。 来自辞典例句

16 erasing   

v.擦掉( erase的现在分词 )；抹去；清除

参考例句：

• He was like a sponge, erasing the past, soaking up the future. 他象一块海绵，挤出过去，吸进未来。 来自辞典例句
• Suddenly, fear overtook longing, erasing memories. 突然，恐惧淹没了渴望，泯灭了回忆。 来自辞典例句